Some league games will now depend on what’s happening in the FA Cup.
Arsenal go to Everton on Wednesday.
David Moyes made six changes at Anfield and lost 3-0. Then he played his strongest team in the FA Cup against Sunderland and only drew 1-1, so that didn’t work.
Now Everton have a replay and the FA Cup matters far more to them than league points. Do we think Moyes might make five or six changes for the visit of Arsenal?
If they win the replay at Sunderland, Everton will play Liverpool at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final.
The FA Cup draw is
Spurs or Bolton v Chelsea
Liverpool v Everton or Sunderland
Right winger Antonio Valencia was back for Manchester United and he made a big difference. The score was only 1-0 until the rash Zubar was sent off.
Valencia sprinted 50 yards with the ball to make it 2-0 and then laid on goals three and five. He is a warrior technician of high calibre. Like Ramires but more controlled.
If Man United had Ramires, maybe they could give Barcelona a game.
Still, United won 5-0 at Wolves to go four points clear of City.
And they reduced the goal difference to four.
The manager who said Carlos Tevez would never play for Manchester City has now welcomed the outcast back and he wants Tevez to win the league for him.
What do I think of Mancini? Well, he chose David Platt as his assistant! What does Platt know about football? Nottingham Forest fans think he’s the worst manager their the club has ever had. City’s squad are all mercenaries and if you have 11 shirts, you can’t keep 22 mercenaries happy.
Manchester United and Liverpool each have a real but different DNA. Man City don’t have any DNA and it’s the one thing money can’t buy.
I’d rather watch Swansea, who are eighth and only three points behind Liverpool.
Back in September, Arsenal played Swansea before the promoted side realised they could score goals in this division.
It was a very close match and the decisive incident came when keeper Vorm inexplicably threw the ball against the legs of one of his own defenders. I was at the game and I’d never seen a goalkeeper do that. The ball popped out to a surprised Arshavin, who knocked it into the empty net and Arsenal won 1-0.
After a few weeks, Swansea realised they could score goals and Brendan Rogers has now signed an Icelandic gem from Hoffenheim on loan : Sigurdsson, who scored twice in their 3-0 win at Fulham on Saturday.
On Sunday afternoon, Liverpool beat Stoke 2-1 in the FA Cup on ITV.
After 23 minutes, what a goal by Suarez! !What a shot!
But the touch was even better than the shot.The receiving touch by Luis Suarez was sensational but only obvious on one of the replay angles. Nice move from Jose Enrique to Gerrard in the Liverpool half, forward to Suarez, who played a one-two with Maxi Rodriguez and his touch as he got the ball back was sublime and crucial because he didn’t place the ball in front of himself, as 99% of strikers would have done.
Suarez is better than that. He realised that this moment was one of those in which games can be won and lost, so he placed the ball sideways. Forward a bit, but more sideways than forward. And then he blasted perfect shot into the bottom corner for 1-0.
Stoke’s equaliser was a foul after a corner that should never have been given. Are linesman blind? The ball went out off Shawcross! Etherington took the corner on the right and when the ball flew into the six-yard box, Pepe Reina was impeded by Ryan Shotton, who was making no attempt to play that ball.
That’s a foul every time. Why don\’t referees give it? The ref should give a free-kick to Liverpool when that happens. If the same player does it twice, a booking.
If Shotton jumps up to try to head the ball, fair enough. But he was only interested in fouling Reina, so that Peter Crouch could head in for 1-1.
Having said all that, Pepe Reina is now like David Seaman was in his last five years at Arsenal. Too old and too rich to come out to catch a ball or punch it away. Doesn’t want to get hurt.
After 57, Stewart Downing cut in from the right, made a wretched pass to Gerrard, got the ball back off Stevie’s heel, and lashed in a shot for 2-1. A good goal but only his second of the season.
The Yankification of English football goes on and on.
It’s now the FA Cup With Budweiser.
Did you see Roy Keane on ITV with the idiots?
Roy is succinct and tells it like it is. He talks sense and doesn’t waste words. Presenter Adrian Chiles was nicked from Match of the Day 2, where he was a jokey buffoon. And now he’s a jokey buffoon on ITV. He was joined by Roy Keane, the ignorant Peter Reid and the bureaucratic Gareth Southgate. Chiles, Reid and Southgate? What did we do to deserve that trio?
Does the producer believe that Peter Reid and Gareth Southgate know something about football that the viewers don’t know? Why not use a journalist who knows the game and will say something interesting? Why is it only ex-players who are allowed to talk about football?
ITV viewers deserve better. I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence but it\’s true. ITV viewers deserve better than Adrian Chiles, Peter Reid and Gareth Southgate. And Reid is the worst. He\’s so inarticulate. If you wrote down everything Peter Reid said on that programme, and then read it, you’d know nothing.
The collapse of Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba at White Hart Lane is a human tragedy magnified by two things : where it happened and the player’s extraordinary back-story.
He was an 11-year old refugee who came from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo to east London. He spoke four words of English. Muamba grew up to sign for Arsenal, was sold to Birmingham, earned three A-levels and played 33 times for England’s Under-21s. He captained the team at the finals in Denmark last summer.
Today, with Muamba still in intensive care, we’re told that the Bolton players are too traumatised to face a replay of their abandoned tie at Tottenham, so the club is likely to waive the tie.
That’s fair enough. As we waited apprehensively for further news from the hospital on Saturday night, I lost all interest in football. Didn’t watch the Barcelona game, didn’t watch Match of the Day, didn’t even record it.
Having got up very early, I went to bed early, still hoping Muamba would regain consciousness.